The invention relates to a locking block device provided in the region of a cartridge chamber of a handgun barrel and comprising a locking block for releasably locking the gun barrel to a breech prior to firing the handgun and comprising a control member having a control guide for swinging out the gun barrel, after the handgun has been fired, for the purpose of separating the gun barrel from the breech, and further comprising a feed ramp provided in the region of a stop member of the locking block for the purpose of feeding a cartridge, stored in a magazine of the handgun, into the cartridge chamber of the gun barrel following ejection of a fired cartridge.
Locking block devices of the above type are used in the prior art in order to lock a gun barrel firmly to a breech prior to firing the handgun, whereupon the gun barrel and the breech first move jointly in the direction counter to the projectile's motion directly after the handgun has been fired, and this joint movement of the gun barrel and the breech is followed by separation of the gun barrel from the breech due to an unlocking action of the gun barrel, in order to bring the gun barrel into a position in which a cartridge can be fed from the magazine of the handgun into the cartridge chamber.
However, a disadvantage of the locking block devices known in the prior art is that, for reasons of achieving the required robustness, they have to be fabricated integrally with a gun barrel in a process that consumes labor and material.
Another disadvantage of the prior locking block devices is the inability to customize the locking block and particularly the feed ramp of the locking block for feeding cartridges from a magazine into the cartridge chamber of the gun barrel, as would be desirable for various applications. Thus the feed ramp cannot be adapted to suit cartridges of various shapes and calibers.